Crossword Game with Player-colored Tiles and Alternate-shaped Vowels

ABSTRACT

A multiple player, turn-based, crossword game where there is a distinct colored collection of tiles for each player, and these tiles are shaped differently based upon their imprint of either a consonant or vowel. The amount and frequency of these imprinted letters and letter scores is consistent between each players&#39; separate collection of tiles. Players take turns building and placing a word from their private tile holder which contains a random selection of their choice of N consonants and M vowels, where N and M can vary, but N+M is fixed and consistent between the players. Play continues until a player has successfully played all of the tiles in their collection. Unplayed tiles from the other players is then deducted from their score and added to the score of the player who played their last tile. The player with the highest recorded score is the winner.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This disclosure relates to methods of play for crossword games. More specifically, how played letter tiles are differentiated between players as well as the letters' status of either a vowel or consonant.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Crossword games have been present in English speaking and other language societies for over a hundred years. These have been an enjoyable and educational method for building one's vocabulary and spelling retention, while measuring their talent in a challenging way against one or more other players. However, with these traditional crossword games, the communal selection of letter tiles without a clear division between players, as well as the lack of a tangible differentiation between their designation as either consonant or vowel, introduces a luck factor that can supersede a player's skill.

This provides significant and specific opportunity for the creation of a crossword game whose outcome is more geared on skill.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Herein are the methods and utility for a crossword game with rules that are simple to learn and understand, but whose outcome is primarily geared based on a player's ability at strategy, vocabulary and spelling retention, over that of luck. The unique nature of this crossword game to proportionally align the outcome of the game away from luck and over toward skill is derived from the separate but equal division of letter tiles between players, and each player's ability to choose vowels and consonants separately.

The uniform color of all letter tiles that traditional crossword games use within a community collection for all players to randomly choose from can lead one player to have an unfair advantage by their selection of higher scoring letter tiles. The first part of the invention defined here, that provides the equal division of letters into separate tile collections base on a player's tile color, is critical in increasing skill's impact on the crossword game's outcome. For the game herein, each player has the same access to all of the highest scoring letters, as well as those needed to build longer words.

The uniform shape of vowels and consonants in traditional crossword games can also lead to one player being unfairly presented with a vowel/consonant selection frequency heavily leaned to one side. That can greatly impact the player's ability to score a significant word or even block the player from creating any valid word. Furthermore, a player's selection of tiles leaned toward all vowels or all consonants can also impact the player's word play beyond a single turn. The solution created by traditional crossword games to address this serious issue is to allow players to trade in their tiles, resulting in an unfair loss of the player's turn. The second part of the invention defined herein is to introduce an alternate shape of vowels to that of consonants. This allows each player to randomly pick tiles with the desired number of consonants and vowels separately. Controlling this increases the ability to play longer and higher scoring words, while abolishing the need for the traditional rule of trading in unwanted letter tiles.

The letter scores of traditional crossword games are typically derived solely based on the overall frequency of the letter's usage within the played language. This can give certain letters like ‘X’ (for English) an unfair advantage, since ‘X’ can be used to generate numerous two-letter words; critical to being able to build across other words. To this end, letter scores for this invention are derived based on their difficulty of being used in a played word.

Given that the utility of this invention provides an equal, but separate collection of letter tiles to each player, the number of playable tiles in the game increases when additional players are added to the game. In one embodiment, a default, two-player crossword board of sixteen by sixteen square spaces (FIG. 6) increases in size to twenty by twenty for three players (FIG. 7) and twenty-four by twenty-four for four players (FIG. 8). Other embodiments would include alternate arrangements of the board and tile holder size, as these only slightly change the unique nature of this invention.

A typical strategy in traditional crossword games is to play shorter adjacent words as a method to block the board from being built upon in that area. This can be counter-productive to the enjoyment level of the game and reduce the reward of being able to play longer words. A positive consequence of the invention defined herein is that the game strategy steers away from shorter, blocking words, to that of racing to build longer words in an effort to play your last tile before your opponents do. Doing so provides the greater reward of adding the larger number of unplayed letter tiles collectively to your score, while subtracting those unplayed tile values individually from the players who failed to play them.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 presents a sample game play with two players, where player 1, with white tiles, first started from the center with HAPPY, and player 2, with black tiles, then played below this with BOX, while each selecting more vowel/consonant tiles, as needed, to maintain their eight letter rack for later turns (ie: BITTER and STROAMING).

FIG. 2 presents sample white consonant tiles (37 in total) with their imprinted letter and score (for player 1), where the concave top and bottom of each tile provides a distinct feel from that of a vowel tile and allows for viewing the potential bonus color on the game-board square for which the tile is placed on top of.

FIG. 3 presents sample white vowel and wild-card tiles (26 in total) with imprinted letter and score (for player 1), where the hexagonal shape of each tile provides a distinct feel from that of a consonant tile and allows for viewing the potential bonus color on the game-board square for which the tile is placed on top of.

FIG. 4 presents sample black consonant tiles (37 in total) with imprinted letter and score (for player 2), where the concave top and bottom of each tile provides a distinct feel from that of a vowel tile and allows for viewing the potential bonus color on the game-board square for which the tile is placed on top of.

FIG. 5 presents sample black vowel/wild-card tiles (26 in total) with imprinted letter and score (for player 2), where the hexagonal shape of each tile provides a distinct feel from that of a consonant tile and allows for viewing the potential bonus color on the game-board square for which the tile is placed on top of.

Additional tile sets are also provided in other colors, example: red for player 3 and blue for player 4.

FIG. 6 presents a sample crossword game board for two players, comprised of sixteen by sixteen squares, where bonus squares are highlighted with a distinct color and label (DL—double letter; DW—double word; TL—triple letter; TW—triple word).

FIG. 7 presents a sample game board for three players, comprised of twenty by twenty squares, where bonus squares are highlighted with a distinct color and label (DL—double letter; DW—double word; TL—triple letter; TW—triple word; QL—quadruple letter; QW—quadruple word).

FIG. 8 presents a sample game board for four players, comprised of twenty-four by twenty-four squares, where bonus squares are highlighted with a distinct color and label (DL—double letter; DW—double word; TL—triple letter; TW—triple word; QL—quadruple letter; QW—quadruple word). 

1. A method of playing a crossword game on a physical or virtual board, comprising of a grid of rectangular spaces (denoted within as squares) for tile placement, where each player has a separate collection and color of tiles that are shaped differently depending upon their imprint of either a consonant or vowel, and the frequency of these imprinted letters and letter scores is consistent between each players' separate collection of tiles. A wild-card can also be introduced with the shape of either a consonant or vowel, but can be played as either.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein players take turns building and placing a word from their private tile holder which contains a random selection of their choice of N consonants and M vowels, where N and M can vary, but N+M is fixed and consistent between the players.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the order of play is determined by the order of a randomly selected consonant by each player (for English, ‘B’ is first). Matching consonants by two or more players results in additional selections until the final order is determined. On a virtual setting, the computer can be designated to run this random selection to more quickly to determine the order.
 4. The method of claim 2, wherein the initial word has to be placed to land on a starting location(s). One embodiment provides a game board apparatus with four central squares, any of which can be used as a starting location. This gives that player the flexibility to make best use and defense of the board's bonus squares in that region. Later words have to be built next to, before, after, above, below or across a previously played word(s) (as in crossword fashion), giving that player the flexibility to also make best use and defense of the board's remaining bonus squares. All words played in the new adjoinment should be represented within a previously agreed upon language and dictionary, but validation may require another player's challenge of the word(s), resulting in the loss of turn of either the challenger or challengee, depending upon the word(s)′ validation or invalidation, respectively.
 5. The method of claim 4, wherein the score value of each newly created word in the played adjoinment is added to the player's score even if part of the word(s) created make use of previously played tiles of other colors. The score of each played word is based upon the sum of the imprinted tile values, after accounting for their initial use of the board's bonus squares, including: double letter, double word, triple letter, triple word, quadruple letter and quadruple word.
 6. The method of claim 1, wherein the score value of each letter tile is based solely on its difficulty of being played within the game instead of it being based solely upon the frequency of the letter's usage within the language.
 7. The method of claim 2, wherein play continues until a player has successfully played all of the letter tiles in their collection. The unplayed tiles from the other players' holder and collection is then deducted from their score individually, and added collectively to the score of the player who played their last tile. The player with the highest recorded score at the end of the game is the winner. 